The Milwaukee County parks director is walking and pointing and talking. She is mapping out Milwaukee's lakefront future, at the south corner of McKinley Park, on the spot where the old Coast Guard Station once stood.

Here is the location for a new path, to lead walkers from the Brady St. pedestrian bridge to the water. Over there is where new bathrooms could go. And down near a rutted parking lot, Black conjures up images of freshly planted grass and a raised walkway where dreamers can look beyond the breakwater, out to Lake Michigan.

It's in her head. It's also on paper, the plan to pull down some ugly fencing, take away patches of gravel and mold rolling land into something stunning.

If only she could find the sponsors and the money, $2 million to $12 million, to turn architectural renderings into reality.

"My job is to think for the future," she says.

It's a tough job and a tough environment. But Black, whose salary this year is $117,973, will not back down.

She has been on the job for seven years, hard years of presiding over a 15,000-acre system in an era of financial limits.

She's 49, now. Her hair has turned silver.

"I'm chipping away little by little at what I can," she says, dressed in work boots, jeans and a county parks jacket. "I do with what I've got. I could throw up my hands. But I don't think the county deserves that. I'm going to keep trying."

Spring is when everyone's attention turns outdoors and to the parks. Her passion for parks remains infectious. Before coming to Milwaukee, she was director of Wisconsin state parks.

"If you want to know how to support a park system, just use it, support it. It's yours," she says.

Rich Tennessen, the executive vice president of Eppstein Uhen Architects, says Black prevailed upon the firm to create the drawings for the McKinley Park plan. He doesn't doubt for a moment that Black will come up with the funding to see the plan through to reality.

"With Sue's involvement, the chances (of success) are certainly increased," he says. "But it's going to take somebody that sees it, has some financial means to help make it happen."

Even Kurt Zunker, the union leader for the parks workers, doesn't have a quarrel with Black.

"Sue does the best she can with what she has got," Zunker says. "And she has the gold medal."

In 2009, the Milwaukee County parks system was named the winner of the National Recreation and Park Association's Gold Medal Award in the Park and Recreation Management Program.

That was the good news.

The bad news: The parks are budgeted for $42.25 million in 2010, almost $1.5 million less than the previous year.

"You get creative, creative, creative," Black says. "You get out of bed and figure it out. In this environment, in this economy, you have to be even more creative. My people work above and beyond. They don't just punch out and go home. It's their park, their community. I'm here to get them better equipment, better supplies, better training."

Preserving gems

The parks remain Milwaukee's jewels, even though some of them are tarnished after decades of declining resources as budgets were cut and personnel slashed.

A Milwaukee County audit report released in December 2009 was titled "A Tale of Two Systems: Three Decades of Declining Resources Leave Milwaukee County Parks Reflecting the Best and Worst of Times."

The report focused on such jewels as Boerner Botanical Gardens and the Mitchell Park Horticulture Conservatory (the Domes) as well as eyesores of boarded-up buildings and a basketball court overgrown with weeds. It determined deferred maintenance costs of at least $200 million.

Among the report's recommendations: figure out the criteria for fixing or demolishing a facility; replace some current facilities with new ones that are cheaper to construct and maintain; and bulk up public-private partnerships.

There are bright spots. Groundbreaking is due later this year for the new pool in Hoyt Park. Bradford Beach remains spiffed up and poised for large summer crowds.

And urban parks are vitally important for cities looking to create a better quality of life for their citizens. Millennium Park in Chicago is magnet for residents and tourists, a mix of artwork and gardens, a skating rink that converts to a patio for dining in the spring and summer. New York is transforming an 85-acre, post-industrial waterfront site into Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Milwaukee already has its vast park facilities. Some need to be polished, brought up to 21st-century standards.

The parks give a city life and space, places to play and gather and grow.